


Swan Dive

by operationhades



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Clint Barton Does Not Swear, Flying, Flying!Tony, Gen, Loki Does What He Wants, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 21:17:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1085786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/operationhades/pseuds/operationhades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony would like to say it’s not his fault.</p><p>Really. It isn’t.</p><p>Okay, so he might or might not have poked the crazy-as-all-get-out bear that was Loki a bit <em>too</em> much, sure, and maybe he cracked one joke too many about his really creepy (and hilarious) horned helmet, and maybe-</p><p>… Yeah, okay, fine; <em>it’s totally his fault.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Swan Dive

**Author's Note:**

> **_prompt:_** Hi can you please do a prompt with the Avengers where Tony can fly? That'd be really great!
> 
> This is in no way worthy of being posted up here, but man it's been a while since I've posted _anything_ , hasn't it? D: Also, Tony calling Clint bird names (hawk, seagull, parrot, _anhinga_ ) is my new headcanon. I regret nothing.

Tony would like to say it’s not his fault.

Really. It isn’t.

Okay, so he might or might not have poked the crazy-as-all-get-out bear that was Loki a bit  _too_ much, sure, and maybe he cracked one joke too many about his really creepy (and hilarious) horned helmet, and maybe-

… Yeah, okay, fine; it’s  _totally his fault._

"But that doesn’t mean he can just magic me!" Tony finishes, flapping his arms beside him and ignoring the little voice in his head laughing at his own choice of words. "Seriously! How does this even fit the crime? This is a cruel and unusual punishment! I call foul!"[[MORE]]

"It shall only last a day, friend Tony," Thor tells him wisely, even as he painstakingly presses a red crayon to the paper he’s drawing on. Next to him, the other Avengers are nodding, Steve with his tongue poking out the side of his mouth as he concentrates on his own paper, blue crayon in hand. "You should be grateful Loki did not curse you with much worse."

Clint snorts, knocking back his orange juice with careless abandon. “That’s because Tony here pissed him off so bad he could barely use his brain for anything really creative.”

Natasha nods, pursing her lips thoughtfully as she peers up at Tony. “The ability to render your enemies so raving mad they lose all higher brain functions is an impressive one.”

Bruce snuffles into his arm, a vaguely agreeing noise that sounds more on the verge of passing out than anything else, but he  _did_ just de-hulk from a good ol’ fashion smashing, so he gets a free pass.

The others, however, Tony glares at mutinously.

From the ceiling.

Where he can’t get down from.

"This  _sucks_.”

* * *

"Mr. Stark," Coulson greets him with a bland face, not in the least surprised to see someone floating along a good foot above the ground. "The Director would like to brief you on your conversation with Mr. Silvertongue and how it led to this development. Also, Ms. Potts would like me to inform you that you are not allowed to let the general public find out about your current state due to the inevitable effect it would have on the stock prices."

"I’m  _flying_ ,” Tony tells him peevishly, throwing one leg over the other as he floats aimlessly around the living room. “Or, well, hovering. I’m not sure what the hell I’m doing, but it feels like a lack of gravity. Like I’m in-” he stops, swallows thickly, and carefully wipes his face blank, just like Coulson’s. “-The ocean! Yeah, just bobbing along the pacific. Calming. Relaxing, even. I should get Bruce up here whenever he starts getting that pinched look on his face because Thor’s annoying him for a rematch with the Hulk or something. For a warrior, he can’t handle the idea of meeting his equal, can he?”

Coulson stares at him expressionlessly, like a dead piece of paper; because a normal piece of paper has more expression than he does.

Tony, because he’s unenthusiastically suicidal and addicted to bad ideas, stares back at him.

"… This is where you’re supposed to reply." He finally says, uncomfortable at the laws of society being broken by Coulson’s robotically blank face. "Y’know, converse. Open your mouth and let noises in the form of words sprout forth like a gushing fou- and nope, absolutely not, that imagery is burning into my retinas right now,  _ew_ , how does Thor  _speak like this_ all the damn  _time?_ ”

But Coulson has already disappeared.

* * *

Because this is Tony Stark and the world (and the universe as we know it) hates his very being to kingdom come, a mutant decides to attack New York four hours in.

"Seriously," Clint bitches, "It’s like every time you’re out of commission these nutcrackers just pop up out of the woods. Who the cocktail’s gonna catch me when I swan dive now?"

Steve - already in his Captain America uniform - throws Clint a quelling look, and orders, “Don’t you dare swan dive, Hawkeye. I mean it.”

Clint grins at him, opening his mouth to no doubt argue about it, but shuts it with a snap when Natasha throws him a dark, terrifying look.

"Wise little birdy," Tony croons at him with a cruel curl of his lips, "Quiet little birdy. Birdy stay on ground. Birdy no fly. Can’t save your damsel rump today, darlin’."

"Fudge you, man," Clint replies with a middle finger, running into the quinjet with Natasha and a weary Bruce at his heels. "Hope you float to the sun and get stuck there like Icarus."

"Icarus  _fell_ , my dove.”

"Stop calling me that or I swear to Thor-"

"-You’ll what? Truss me up and baste me?"

Clint stops, stares up at Tony with a disturbed look, and says, “… Not gonna even ask, dude. What the vodka.”

And then they leave, abandoning Tony behind to man the comms and security cameras and grow bored out of his  _skull_ because JARVISdoes all that _anyway_ , oh my god.

Which, in retrospect, is probably why he’s the only one around to deal with the second mutant that comes crashing through his living room window.

Right. Because  _obviously_ the first one’s just a distraction.

Obviously.

* * *

"Hawkeye, get the civilians on fourth to safety. Widow, go close combat to Thor’s long range. Hulk-"

"-HULK SMASH!"

"Yeah, big guy, smash like crazy, and JARVIS, you got any eyes on the bad g-"

Clint interrupts, head tilted up from the building he’d been climbing down from. “-Uh, sorry Cap, but you should probably look up. To the tower.”

"Indeed," JARVIS monotones exasperatedly, even as Steve looks up and curses a colourful streak at what he sees. "Sir is currently fighting a second mutant that attempted to break into the tower. Without his suit."

“ _What_ does he  _think_ he’s  _doing_?” Steve grits out, gripping his shield tight as he sees Clint finally move the civilians to safety. “Is he-“

"He is," Natasha confirms with a dark glower that easily passes through the line.

"Oh wow, he totally is," Clint pipes in, sounding  _gleeful_.

Thor drops down next to Steve, shaking the earth with the force of his weight, and loudly booms, “Friend Tony is surprisingly nimble! I did not know he could bend that way! FRIEND TONY! WHERE DID YOU LEARN TO MOVE AS SUCH?”

Tony, flying high above the tower with the current villain of the day’s ankle in a tight grip, shouts something indecipherable back.

Thor’s delighted laugh probably means it was something indecent.

Steve sighs.

* * *

"Tin man fly with no tin?" Hulk asks as soon as Tony lands with a wobble, the two mutants safely taken away by SHIELD.

Tony grins up at the big green monster, patting him on a large green bicep. “Only for today, big guy. I’ll be back to metal tomorrow, and then we’ll properly smash together again, ‘kay?”

Hulk nods amiably, seemingly pleased with the answer, and soon shrinks back into a groaning Bruce who promptly passes out.

"Tony," Steve sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off the headache  _he should not be getting_. “Tony.”

"That’s my name," Tony chirps happily.

“ _Tony,_ " Steve stresses, raising and dropping his hands for  _emphasis_. “What are the chances of you staying in the tower for the duration of the curse? Huh? What do I have to do to have you stay in the tower so Ms. Potts doesn’t-…”

"Breathe unholy fire at us all until we regret ever being born?" Clint pipes in helpfully.

Steve flushes in embarrassment, resolutely ignoring the fact that it’s the closest thing to what he was going to say anyway, and instead folds his arms across his chest at Tony, radiating disapproval.

Bruce groans from where he’s crashed out in Thor’s arms, face smushed against the thunder god’s broad shoulder.

"How about this, Cap," Tony says, starting to rise up from the ground ever so slightly, feet no longer touching the pavement. "You let me work down in my lab for  _as long as I want_ , with  _no interruptions_ , in one full go, and I promise you won’t see hide nor hair of me. Literally. Plus bacon and eggs for breakfast tomorrow.”

"What, no!" Clint protests. "How else will I get my kicks if you’re not around to float like some weird balloon? And tomorrow’s _my_ day to choose; I wanted pancakes!”

"Shut up, peacock," replies Tony offhandedly, still staring at Cap with a face that screams ‘Negotiating Is Taking Place Here’. "How ‘bout it, Cap? It’ll keep me out of trouble  _and_ I’ll be in the tower. Win win!”

It’s really not; Tony in the lab for longer than ten hours leads to a Tony that rewires parts of the entire building into a sentient being that serenades particular members of the Avengers and frostily ignores others. Steve’s been told many times singing appliances are  _not_ part of the future, that they’re just part of Tony.

Ms. Potts was particularly vehement about that, like it was personal.

Actually, now that Steve thinks about it, so was Colonel Rhodes.

(“Why else do you think I don’t let him touch War Machine anymore? He freakin’ worked on her while he was half out of his mind with no sleep and buzzed up on coffee and red bull, and half-way through a stealth op I suddenly lit up like the Fourth of July! With  _missiles_!”)

(Happy had once told Steve with a sombre expression that he’d met a young Tony Stark wielding a frying pan and nothing else against a seemingly murderous robot with a fire extinguisher. A robot he’d later come to know and love as Dummy.)

"Fine," Steve finally grits out, ignoring the alarmed look Natasha throws his way. "But I swear, Tony,  _one_ explosion, just  _one_ and-“

"-What! No, that was not part of our negotiation, you can’t just bring new terms after an agreement has been made, that’s not how negotiating works! I get all the damn explosions I  _want_ , besides, I can just fly out of their way now!”

As if to prove that, Tony officially rises a full metre in the air, now somewhat taller than Steve, but more along Thor’s height.

Thor smacks him back down with a hearty pat on the back.

* * *

What happens is this:

A) Tony really  _does_ go to his workshop and play with his toys to his metal-blue heart’s content.

B) Midnight  _does_ come and go with only one explosion to mark the ticking of the hour.

And C) Clint really  _does_ think it’s a great idea to upload the video of Tony - a few hours before midnight, where his flying was still very much a thing - cursing a blue streak and scrabbling at the ceiling of his workshop because he  _can’t get down_ to the internet.

The video hits viral in a record breaking two hours.

Clint titled it: _Le Iron Turtle_.

**Author's Note:**

> You have the right to remain silent and roll on over to my tumblr, [sheriffbadass](http://sheriffbadass.tumblr.com). You have the right to send asks, and if you're too shy for it, then you shall be appointed the veil of anon to allow you to do so.


End file.
